Today, after playing numerous games of poker against my friend, and him telling me that I'm the best poker player he's ever met, I went out and played for real money. I got totally destroyed, lost all of my money, and was laughed out of the building. FML

That is why it is called gambling. What OP really needs to do is set a limit and stick to it. $50.00 is my usual limit, but when I have more money than usual, $100.00 is my limit :p whether it be VLT machines or a table (poker/blackjack) is still the same.

@41 There is a small town called Wendover near where I live. And they do cheap tournaments sometimes. I entered a tournament that let the first 50 people play for free. And then you had to pay $10 to buy more chips. I think the jackpot was only $1000 though. I think Reno does cheap tournaments sometimes too. Small po dunk towns.

Of course chance is involved, but poker isn't just any other chance game. It's more of a sport than anything. OP entered a world of deception which he knew nothing about, that's just being an idiot. Professional poker players started with nothing, and now keep going while being rich. You just have to be a good liar and reader.

Don't gamble people. It's bad. You should have never bet all your money in the first place, especially with it being your first time against people who do it for practically a living. Not to mention girls hate that stuff. Now it's back to square one for you

I disagree with the whole don't gamble cause its bad bit, but other than that your comment was pretty spot on. Just like anything, you need to start small before trying for the top in gambling.
Also, girls only hate it when you're losing.

#2, I'ma disagree with you on this, just because poker is actually not a game of chance unlike many other gambling platforms. It does require a lot of skill and calculation (and professional poker-playing actually requires very little perceptive skill like seeing if someone's bluffing or doing a 'poker face'). It's not like a poker machine or any other type of gambling where you're betting against the house - the house will always win more than it will lose. There ARE however, professional poker-players - playing poker is your job and not your hobby. Look it up, it's real. They usually only earn about 20k+ a year unless they're very good, but it's a real job and they have to pay tax on it and everything. To be good at poker (enough to make it a fulltime job or whatever) you have to be very good at maths (no joke, either). It's pretty much constantly calculating the likelihood of winning if you play these cards or should you fold or whatever - all maths stuff, and very complicated maths too. So it is a skill and you CAN become a very good player; it's less based on luck as you think.
Of course, if you're a bad player then that's a completely different ball game.

#23, regardless if it's a game of chance or not, it's still not wise to go to professional buildings without much professional experience. I would be a little more lenient to the OP if it was just practice or him testing his skill level, however he chose to risk all his money immediately, not just a portion of it. That in itself was a gamble that OP lost. Most gambles are all about chance anyways, even if poker isn't (although there is a risk when drawing from a deck. You don't know exactly what you'll get, which can either be a godsend card or a card that fucks the whole hand up). It's more about being smart with your money, and not as much with your hand.

You obviously don't play poker. When you get crap cards, you either bluff or fold. Simple as that. Poker is about making decisions based on information. Now occasionally your opponent gets super lucky (wins on the river) and there's nothing you can do about that, but as the law of large numbers says, better players definitely win more money.

I'd have to say Poker is just about mostly skill and calculation. To a great player, you can deceive with every hand. If you can't take the chance, then you back off with bad hands. But OP is simply a MAJOR idiot for managing to bet everything away, who the hell let OP hold money in the first place? I don't even understand how someone could be so wreckless, it blows my mind.

#33 I agree with you completely. I was just pointing out that poker falls into a different type of gambling - almost like a sport as somebody else put it. I agree that OP was very naive and should have been much more cautious with his first time playing against more experienced players with real money. You're right that in THAT context he sort of did gamble by betting on his friend's encouragement that he was a good player and he was stupid to bet all his money and lose it all on the first day. I was just rebutting your rather blanketing statement earlier: that 'gambling is bad' because poker is something you can learn to become very good at so the fact that it may be addictive isn't necessarily a bad thing if you are an excellent player.

#75, it may work differently in America, but here if you can prove that gambling is a hobby and not your job, you don't pay tax on it. Because they can't tax a hobby. There was a guy who took it to the court here when the tax office tried to get him to pay tax on the $10000 he got from playing poker, and he argued that his job was being a dentist (whic he was), and playing poker was just a hobby. He won the case. And right after he won it, he quit his job and became a professional poker player :P

Be honest: You knew this was a possibility when you decided to go into a casino and gamble all of your money. Knowing the FML community, you will find a distinct lack of sympathy here. You, Sir, are a moron.